Sculpture (Sculpture)

In Erin Jane Nelson’s 2019 body of work Av, panels are covered in collaged images and shellacked with resin or epoxy: photographs of plants intermingle with pictures of men and women engaging in various spiritual activities, cartoons of mothers and their children, or black and white images of window panes. The panels and ceramics act as backdrops upon which Nelson attempts to establish connections between the natural world and the various cultural and religious orders we impose upon it. She incorporates Jewish symbolism and archival photographs alongside her ongoing photographic practice documenting the environmental collapse of her home region.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

The Woman, The Orphan, and The Tiger begins with the sound of women’s voices describing histories of violence, of things repressed and silenced. Gradually, their voices accumulate into a cacophony of pure sonic intensity against an extreme slow-motioned image of a woman survivor of Japan’s military sexual slavery who, in the absence of words to accurately account for her suffering, gets up and walks into the center of a war crimes tribunal court room and gestures wildly before she faints. This work by Jane Jin Kasen and Guston Sondin-Kung explores ways in which trauma is passed on from previous generations to the present through a sense of being haunted.

Photography (Photography)

Erin Shirreff’s A. P. series of prints investigates how objects are “constructed” at the level of the image. For each composite photograph, Shirreff fabricates two sculptural forms from what appear to be metal or plaster, although the precise materials are unidentified. Her sculptures resemble miniature architectural models or renderings of buildings as-yet-to-be fully conceptualized, both elemental and elegant in their use of sharp angles and clean lines.

Film & Video (Film & Video)

“The Prisoner’s Cinema” is a phenomenon described in neurology as a hallucination, that appears after a prolonged absence of visual sensations. A blind screen of hallucinations forms itself on the eyes cut off from visual stimuli. The subject can see this projection, but fails to register these mental images, transforming it into an intimate and personal experience.

Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

Cluster Illusion examines the brain’s tendency to recognize a pattern as something abstract. Rather than seeing the distinct dots of which the images are composed, our brains turn these dots into illusory clouds. This series is a study of human vision and a commentary on the human urge to find shapes and patterns in anything, giving coherence to the whole.